How to Create a TV Commercial Storyboard

Step 1

1. Format your template

You’ve established your tv ad storyline through studying age demographics and all other relevant brand analytics, so now you’re ready to start building your tv commercial storyboard. But not so fast, because the first step is making sure your storyboard layout and dimensions fit your workflow. 16:9 storyboard panels will reflect most modern television screen aspect ratios, and be careful not to exceed more than 8 panels per page so your visual narrative doesn’t get too cluttered. If you’re in StudioBinder, you’ll be taken through a handful of setup prompts before arriving at your personalized commercial storyboard template:

Now you’re ready to start filling out the panel descriptions on your television commercial storyboard. If you have a script, you can upload it into StudioBinder and quickly transfer script lines into descriptions. Here you’re thinking about narrative pacing and how quickly the setup is made apparent within your television spot’s timeframe, then also make note of what camera angles will best capture each moment.

Step 2

2. Upload images

Now that you’ve filtered your company marketing campaign into a well-paced narrative with the most visually appealing camera shot ideas written out, it’s time to bring some life to your tv commercial storyboard. You might be working hand in hand with storyboard artists, or even hand-drawing your commercial storyboard yourself. If none of the above are an option, don’t feel timid about using stock photos or AI images. As long as you can use it to help communicate your ad ideas to your client, it’s fair game.

To upload images in StudioBinder, just click Upload in any blank panel.

Step 3

3. Use storyboard arrows

If an image on your television commercial storyboard isn’t quite capturing your attention in the right way, chances are it probably won’t capture your customer’s attention when it's transferred to screen either. This is where adding storyboard arrows to your tv commercial storyboard becomes helpful. For example, you might want to add an arrow to an image to indicate a zoom shot that captures the big product reveal, this way your client definitely can’t miss your intent during the pitch meeting.

In our example of tv commercial storyboard arrows, we came up with the idea to add a swish pan transition in one of our shots that doesn’t quite have the energy we hoped for. So we’ll jump into StudioBinder’s image editor to find the right kind of arrow for the job.

Perfect, we found an arrow that looks like it was made for our image. Now we’ll just adjust the size to fit our advertisement’s star good boy, then click Save, and our freshly edited image has now been added into our storyboard for tv commercial project.

Step 4

4. Collaborate for feedback

An ad campaign comes with a lot of moving parts, from coworkers to clients, you’ll want to keep a reliable hub for all collaboration and notes on your tv commercial storyboard. If you’re using StudioBinder, then you can use your commercial storyboard itself as the singular platform where you invite others to make edits or leave feedback.

Enabling either commenter or editor permissions on your invites allows your invitees to take advantage of the comments section on your storyboard. Here they can leave any notes, or even strike up a conversation about how they think your television commercial storyboard can be improved.

Step 5

5. Convert to PDF

You’ve reached the end of your tv commercial storyboard journey, but there’s still one more vital step! If you’re creating a great television ad worthy of premiering during the Super Bowl, then losing your storyboard because you didn’t save it properly would be the most tragic outcome of all. Which is why saving every version of your commercial storyboard as a PDF while it continues to evolve is essential, this way you have an unchangeable document that you can share and customize.

You can also customize your storyboard based on any client requests. For our sample tv commercial storyboard, we’ll go into StudioBinder’s PDF editor and create a front and back cover so we look as professional as possible during our big client pitch meeting. Then we’ll add a watermark before printing because we’d hate to hear our competition stole all our ad campaign ideas!

Conclusion

You're done!

Thanks for taking the ride with us for this journey on how to create a tv commercial storyboard. If you find yourself curious about taking on any other kinds of storyboard challenges, be sure to check out all our free storyboard templates that are available. And best of luck winning over that client with that winning ad idea of yours (we know you won’t need it)!